I love Etsy. I hope to write a big Etsy love post some time in the future. Until then let me share one thing I recently purchased through Etsy that made our Christmas a little more environmentally friendly. I'm sure you have read the suggestion to make cloth bags or to use fabric to wrap presents. This is great advice but if you cannot sew (like me) than you are left trying to find such bags. Enter the magic of Etsy, I typed in fabric gift bags and the choices were numerous (but not as endless as I had wished.) I ordered, they arrived, I popped the items for the children into the bags, tied a fabric bow and viola. Wrapping finished. I also wrapped stocking gifts in the bags but no one mentioned the similarity. (On a side note, Cate announced to me before Christmas that "Santa is just a man in a costume so how do the things get in the stocking" and I said "it's magical." Lame answer to be sure but I'm not a big fan of Santa anyway.)
Here is a photo of their gifts before they were opened.
We opened gifts from each of the grandparents at different times so that the kids could appreciate each set of gifts for a bit of time. It was nice to not pick up bits of wrap after opening our gifts. I think I'm going to have a couple sets made for the grandparents.